Are most plugins compatible with PHP 5.5?

  • My three WP sites are at PHP 5.3.9. I know that 5.3.9 is end of life and 5.6 is the latest stable release. I’d like to upgrade, but I worry that 5.6 could possibly introduce errors with one or more of the plugins I use, as my web host told me that 5.6 and a lot of big changes. So, I thinking I could upgrade to PHP 5.5.x.

    My question is, overall, are there still plugins that might have issues with 5.5, that currently do work with 5.3.9? I’m not worried about my paid plugins (wish they were all paid, for this very reason), it’s the free ones that I worry about.

    Thanks so much for your opinions.

Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
  • Moderator Steven Stern (sterndata)

    (@sterndata)

    Volunteer Forum Moderator

    Go for 5.6 and see what might break. I haven’t found any plugins (in the pool of those that I use) that don’t work with it.

    I’ve been wondering about this too. Currently use 5.4. I changed to 5.6 and everything seemed to run way slower. So I switched back pronto. Is there any reason why I shouldn’t stick with 5.4 for the time being.

    Moderator Steven Stern (sterndata)

    (@sterndata)

    Volunteer Forum Moderator

    5.4 is past end of life and is inherently insecure. If you want speed, go to 7.0.

    Thread Starter slobizman

    (@slobizman)

    5.4 is past end of life and is inherently insecure. If you want speed, go to 7.0.

    I think that would be only after you’ve contacted every single plugin author — if you can get them to answer — to see if they work on PHP 7, let alone 5.6.

    Moderator Steven Stern (sterndata)

    (@sterndata)

    Volunteer Forum Moderator

    I’m running several sites on PHP 7 without problems. You asked for opinions. I’ve provided an opinion and facts. You may do with them as you please. I’ll step away from this now.

    Thread Starter slobizman

    (@slobizman)

    Does anyone have an opinion on the usage of the PHP Compatibility Plugin? Safe to use? Pretty accurate? Sounds like it works well, but doesn’t have a lot of votes.

    Thread Starter slobizman

    (@slobizman)

    Thanks Steve. Just being cautious. Yes, I asked for opinions and appreciate yours.

    OK, Thanks Steve. I’ll have another look at upgrading my php version. Though my host (surprisingly) does not offer 7 at first look.

    Moderator Steven Stern (sterndata)

    (@sterndata)

    Volunteer Forum Moderator

    I use PHP 7 on Dreamhost.

    I’m with GoDaddy. Just had a rummage about and succeeded in upgrading first to 5.5, then to 5.6 and cannot see a problem, not even the slowness I complained about earlier. I’ll ask GoDaddy about 7

    Thanks

    WP Clone does not work for me with PHP 7.0. I’m told it uses a deprecated feature no longer available in 7. I suspect the same may be true of some of the other backup and migration plugins. Fortunately my host provides a PHP version selector, so I can set it to 5.6 just when I need to backup or restore.

    Re. speed, for me Pingdom results are about 10% faster with 7.0 vs. 5.6 for a site that does not use caching. For a site with aggressive caching, difference is negligible.

Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
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